Monthly Archives: March 2015

What would you think if your nation was wiped from the map by a major publisher. That’s exactly what happened with Israel win an atlas published by HarperCollins. Therefore, I complained. I sent this email to feedback@harpercollins.com.au on 4 January 2015 regarding the following issue.

Dear HarperCollins staff,

Yesterday, January 3, 2015, the Brisbane Times published an article that brought to my attention what your company has done in publishing an atlas of the Middle East that excludes the nation of Israel. Take a read of, ‘Israel missing from HarperCollins atlases sold to Middle East schools‘. I write to protest at what you, one of the world’s largest publishers, have done with this censorship of a sovereign nation – a country that has been a nation since 1948.

This seems to be political correctness gone a-muck with one branch of HarperCollins responding, according to this article,: ‘Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins that specialises in maps, told the Tablet that it would have been “unacceptable” to include Israel in atlases intended for the Middle East. They had deleted Israel to satisfy “local preferences”‘.

Please tell me why your company has deliberately published an atlas of the Middle East and you have censored Israel to take it right off the atlas?

If this is your approach to politically correct publishing, I’ll be very selective in purchasing anything from you and I’ll be telling my friends to steer clear of HarperCollins or be very wary of purchasing from you.

No matter how much HarperCollins apologises, this leaves me with some significant questions:

What would cause any publisher to wipe a country entirely off the map – annihilate it geographically? It’s a nation that was declared a nation in 1948.

What influences would cause a publisher to do this?

How could a publisher send an atlas to editors for final editing and then publishing and this exclusion is not noted or corrected?

I look forward to your response.

No reply from HarperCollins

At the time of writing this article, 23 March 2015, I had received no response to the feedback of complaint that I sent by email to HarperCollins.

The Tablet report

The publishers HarperCollins is withdrawing from sale an atlas that omitted Israel from its maps after the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said it was harmful to peace efforts in the Middle East.

The Tablet‘s story about the the Middle East Atlas, which shows Jordan and Syria extending all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, was widely reported and caused an international outcry. Collins Middle East Atlases were sold to English-speaking schools in the Muslim-majority Gulf, and publicity about their existence has embarrassed the publishing giant.

In a statement on its Facebook page, HarperCollins said: “HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas. This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologises for this omission and for any offence caused”….

At the time, Bishop Declan Lang, chairman of the Bishops’ Conference Department of International Affairs, told The Tablet: “The publication of this atlas will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists a hostility towards their country from parts of the Arab world. It will not help to build up a spirit of trust leading to peaceful co-existence.”

The Tablet has also learned of customs officers in one Gulf nation allowing school atlases to reach their intended recipient only once Israel had been struck out by hand.

Dr Jane Clements, director of the Council of Christians and Jews, told The Tablet that maps that excluded Israel risked causing confusion and de-legitimising the nation in the eyes of the students who used the atlases.

I am grateful that The Tablet published this information about censorship of Israel.

John Ashton and Michael Westacott provided this warning of the danger of science becoming scientism:

It is important to note that science, unlike scientism, should not be a threat to religious belief. Science, to be sure, advocates a “naturalistic” rather than a “supernaturalistic” focus, and an empirical verification method for determining truths about the physical world and the universe. Yet the proper mandate of science is restricted to the investigation of the natural (physical, empirical) dimension of reality. It is this restriction that scientism has violated, replacing proper science with an illicit ideology that not only seeks to explain all things naturalistically, but assumes – without proof – that the spiritual realm is irrelevant, indeed non-existent. This unproven assumption is based on the mistaken belief that nothing exists unless it can be verified by the empirical scientific method. Such a belief is an invalid reductionism that reduces the explanation for all reality to physicality. This “physicalism” overextends the method and capabilities of science (Ashton & Westacott 2005:16).

There are obviously disciplines in our world that cannot be tested empirically. I’m thinking especially of that which has happened in history. It cannot be examined according to the empirical system of current experimentation and repeatability. It also can apply to the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology.

What happens with history?

What is the method for historiography? N T Wright in asking about ‘the proper method for the historian’, explained that the ‘historical method is just like all other methods of enquiry. It proceeds by means of “hypotheses”, which stand in need of “verification”. He considered that ‘a good historical hypothesis … is essentially a construct, thought up by a human mind, which offers itself as a story about a particular set of phenomena, in which the story, which is bound to be an interpretation of those phenomena, and offers an explanation of them’ (Wright 1992:98-99). He considers that there are three things that make for a good hypothesis in any field. They are:

(3) ‘The proposed explanatory story must prove itself fruitful in other related areas’.

He admitted that when these criteria are applied to Judaism, Jesus, and the origin of Christianity, the problems are more complex than examining a city fire because of these three criteria:

(a) ‘The stack of data to be included is vast and bewildering’.

(b) ‘The construction of an essentially simple historical hypothesis is … a major problem’.

(c) ‘The wider jigsaw of the first century as a whole’.

He takes New Testament scholars to task who evolve ‘highly sophisticated ways of getting off the horns of the dilemma posed’ by criteria (a) and (b). What some of these scholars do in dealing with ‘recalcitrant data’ is ‘to show that it comes, not from Jesus himself, but from the later church. The data thus disappear from the picture of Jesus, but at a cost’ (Wright 1992:100-101).

In a discussion of the origin of the Gospels, it is not unusual to hear statements like this from an unbeliever: ‘And there absolutely is reason to believe that Christianity is wrong concerning the historicity, authenticity, inspiration, and authority of the NT, not mention the entirety of the Bible (at least depending on your version of Christianity).[1]

Part of a Christian’s response was: ‘Regarding authenticity, Christianity teaches that certain persons wrote the Bible at certain times. As it pertains to this discussion, the Gospels were written by those whose names are on them, all followers of Christ, prior to A.D. 100. In fact, all the NT was written prior to A.D. 100’.[2]

I asked concerning the Gospels written by followers of Christ: ‘Would you please provide evidence to support this statement?’[3] A rather dogmatic reply came:

This sounds like a reasonable, though somewhat cynical, response as the beginning of each Gospel in English translations has something like, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’, ‘The Gospel according to Mark’, etc. Most people accept that this is what the original text states. But is that the case?

Gospel of Matthew: Original or not?

That doesn’t answer the issue of the origin of, say, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’. Was that statement in the original text?

Let’s use Matthew as an example. The language that appears at the beginning of my ESV copy of Matthew, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’, was not in the original text. It is tradition that tells us that Matthew is its author. This article by Olugbenga Olagunju, ‘Provenance [source] of the Gospel of Matthew‘, explains this. The traditional view is that

the apostle Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic…. This tradition stems from the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (died c. A.D. 130). The record of Papias’s statement about Matthew survives only in Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.16). It reads, “Matthew collected (synetaxato) the oracles (ta logia) in the Hebrew language (Hebraidi dialekto), and each interpreted (hermeneusen) them as best he could.” On first analysis the tradition of Papias appears to say that the apostle Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic, and various translations were made of this work. So it was apparently understood, with minor modifications, in the early churches (McKnight 1992:527).

Eusebius’s statement about Papias and Matthew is: ‘But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able’ (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.16).

This fellow’s response to me was, ‘Where are you going with this “original text” statement?’[6] My reply was, ‘From where do we obtain the evidence that Matthew wrote ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’? Was it stated in the first document that Matthew wrote – the original text?’[7]

His comeback was: ‘When did you find it necessary to have evidence to believe Gods (sic) word, I’ve been reading the same bible for over 40 years and have never doubted its contents’.[8] How do you reply to someone who keeps repeating the same idea that God’s Word says Matthew wrote it. My response was:[9]

‘The Gospel according to Matthew’ is not in the original text of God’s Word. We receive that understanding from the tradition handed down to us from Papias.

You can ‘never doubt its contents’, as I do, but we have to be truthful about the ‘contents’. The title, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’, is not in the contents of God’s word. We have to be careful not to attribute to Scripture what is not there in the original text. We know from Papias’s statement that the people of his day were unsure who wrote Matthew. The text obviously didn’t say so, but he knew from other sources that the original was written by Matthew in Hebrew or Aramaic. But this information is not enshrined in the absolute authority of Scripture in the original manuscripts.

I’ve believed God’s word for 53 years, but my study of Scripture and its background has helped me to learn that the title, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’, is from Papias. It is not from the original Scripture. That does not make the content of the Gospel any less authentic.

Conclusion

Traditionalists who have been reading the Bible for many years and have accepted the title, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew/Mark/Luke/John’, as in Scripture, find it nigh impossible to reject that view that this title is not a part of Scripture as I’ve been trying to show this fellow.

Therefore, the evidence points to the fact that the heading, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’, in our New Testaments is based on tradition, starting with Papias (now Papias’s statement is only available in Eusebius’s writings and he died ca. 339),[10] and is not stated directly in the original Greek text. There would be no point in Papias making such a statement if it was clearly stated in the original text that Matthew wrote the Gospel.

Works consulted

Cairns, E E 1981. Christianity through the centuries: A history of the Christian church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Arminians believe in the governmental theory of the atonement, i.e. ‘God forgives sinners without requiring an equivalent payment’.[1]

Each of these 10 myths has been addressed and challenged by Roger E Olson in Arminian theology: Myths and realities (Olson 2006). However, in formal theological and lay-level discussions, these issues are raised. I struck one in an online forum.

Theological differences: Calvinism, Arminianism and Lutheranism

What are the differences of beliefs among Calvinism, Arminian and Lutheran beliefs? This was a good question asked on a Christian forum.[2] An immediate reply from a Calvinist was:

Arminians are syncretists meaning they believe salvation is both a work of God and man. You will here (sic) them say things like “I asked God into my heart” or “I accepted Jesus.” Calvinists & Lutherans are Monergists meaning they believe God does all the work in salvation. You may hear them say they have been regenerated.[3]

What is false about that declaration? She stated that ‘Arminians are syncretists meaning they believe salvation is both a work of God and man’. Does she know the difference between syncretists and synergists? Could she be referring to synergism and not syncretists?

It is disappointing in this, her first post on this forum, that she provided not one piece of evidence to support her claim that Arminians ‘believe salvation is both a work of God and man’. This is false as a reading of James Arminius will tell us.

In his exposition on ‘The Justification of man before God’, James Arminius wrote:

I believe that sinners are accounted righteous solely by the obedience of Christ; and that the righteousness of Christ is the only meritorious cause on account of which God pardons the sins of believers and reckons them as righteous as if they had perfectly fulfilled the law. But since God imputes the righteousness of Christ to none except believers, I conclude that, in this sense, it may be well and properly said, to a man who believes, faith is imputed for righteousness through grace, because God hath set forth his Son, Jesus Christ, to be a propitiation, a throne of grace, [or mercy seat] through faith in his blood (Works of James Arminius, vol 1, IX).

Arminians believe that sinners are declared righteous only through the work of God and Christ. Arminians do not conclude that salvation is both a work of God and man. Arminius declared:

I am not conscious to myself, of having taught or entertained any other sentiments concerning the justification of man before God, than those which are held unanimously by the Reformed and Protestant Churches, and which are in complete agreement with their expressed opinions (Works of James Arminius, vol 1, IX).

There is much false information in the public market place about the beliefs of Arminianism. If anyone is interested in some clarification on this topic, I recommend Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Olson 2006).

To accept the gift of faith is a work

The response back was to correct her misspelling of ‘syncretist’ for ‘synergist’. Then she stated:

What Jacob Arminius wrote and what Arminians today claim to believe are probably quite different; just as, I, being a Calvinist, do not agree with all of what John Calvin wrote.

I grew up in an Arminian church and was a staunch anti-Calvinist until a few years ago. Most of the people in my life are staunch Arminians. They will all claim that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone. However, they will say that you must “accept” this gift. If we have to accept anything, we are doing a work thus being a synergistic.

However, there are many different flavors of Arminians out there today just as there are many flavors of Calvinists. What I will say is that I have yet to meet one who does not hold to a synergistic idea by what they claim whether they admit to it or not.[5]

I could not allow this to go unchallenged as there are several misrepresentations here:

My rejoinder was to her statement, ‘What Jacob Arminius wrote and what Arminians today claim to believe are probably quite different’. This is way too broad a statement and she has provided no examples to support her claim. To know what a chunk of evangelical Arminians believe today, I suggest a visit to a site such as the ‘Society of Evangelical Arminians‘ where you will find many Arminians who support the general thrust of Jacob/James Arminius’s theology. I, as a Reformed Arminian, am one of those, although not a member of that Society.

The terms, ‘synergism’ and ‘monergism’ have different shades of meaning. Synergism is a theological understanding which believes that there is human participation in salvation. It does not indicate that salvation is attained by human beings. That would be an heretical view. There are heretical forms of synergism in Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism (Olson 2006:17). Roger Olson maintains that ‘Arminianism is evangelical synergism as opposed to heretical, humanistic synergism…. Arminian synergism … affirms the provenience of grace to every human exercise of a good will toward God, including simple nonresistance to the saving work of Christ’ (Olson 2006:18). Olson, an Arminian, writes that

Monergism is also a broad and sometimes confusing term. Its broadest sense points to God as the all-determining reality, which means that everything in nature and history is under the direct control of God. It does not necessarily imply that God causes all things directly, but it does necessarily imply that nothing can happen that is contrary to the will of God, and that God is intimately involved (even if working through secondary causes) in everything, so all of nature and history reflect God’s primary will…. Monergism especially means that God is the sole determining agency in salvation. There is no cooperation between God and the person being saved that is not already determined by God working in the person through, for example, regenerating grace’ (Olson 2006:18-19, emphasis in original).

Matt Slick, a Calvinist, defines monergism as ‘the teaching that God alone is the one who saves. It is opposed to synergism which teaches that God and man work together in salvation. Cults are synergistic. Christianity is monergistic’ (CARM: Monergism). Slick is wrong about ‘cults are synergistic’ and ‘Christianity is monergistic’. The facts are that evangelical Arminians believe in a synergistic view of salvation. Cults may also do that, but that is not the point of my brief article. His view of Calvinistic Christianity is that it is THE Christianity and it is the one that is monergistic, which he considers is the correct view.

Pelagianism denies original sin and considers that people have the human ability to live spiritual lives. Semi-Pelagianism is a modified form of Pelagianism in that it modifies the Pelagian original sin view that sinful human beings have the ability to initiate salvation by responding in good will toward God. I, as a Reformed Arminian, consider those two theological systems to be heretical. See my article, Calvinist misrepresents the Reformed.

In my library I have a few Arminian theologies, including the works of James Arminius, and they include the fact that God’s grace initiates justification. Henry Thiessen is one of those and he wrote:

Justification thus originates in the heart of God. Realizing not only our lack of righteousness, but also our inability to attain to it, He in His kindness decided to provide a righteousness for us. It was His grace that led Him to provide it; He was under no obligation whatsoever to do it. In His grace He had regard to our guilt and in His mercy, to our misery (Thiessen 1949:365).

This person online said of Arminians, ‘I have yet to meet one who does not hold to a synergistic idea’. But what kind of synergistic idea? The heretical Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, evangelical Arminian, etc? To which shade of synergism are you referring?

She said, ‘They will say that you must “accept” this gift. If we have to accept anything, we are doing a work thus being a synergistic’. In my understanding that is a misunderstanding of synergism and of works. In my 53 years of being a Christian, I have heard a number of Calvinists want to include ‘accepting the gift of faith’ as a work. That is not the common understanding of salvation by works, which is a view promoted by some cults or false religion that teach that entrance into eternal glory (or whatever they call it) is attained at least in part by doing a certain list of good deeds or serving the church or organisation with some time or money. That is not the same as accepting a gift that is offered.

Arminians include Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians?

The reason I didn’t “provide any examples to support my claim” is because I didn’t come here to argue or debate. The original poster asked what the difference between the different beliefs were and I gave him a very general, over-simplified explanation. If the OP [original post] wanted a full explaination (sic) with every nuance and flavor, I’m sure he/she knows better than to get that info from a forum thread.

I have never heard of a “Reformed Arminian.” I must admit that sounds like an oxymoron but I’ll also admit that the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. You learn something new every day.

As far as which kind of synergistic idea I was talking about, I would say both Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian. I’ve met Arminians who hold to both but never one that holds to a mongergistic (sic) view of salvation.

If someone were to ask me “What must I do to be saved?” I would probably tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of their sins. However is someone asked my “How is a person saved?” I would tell them that God regenerated a person whom He has chosen from before time. He gives that person “spiritual eyes” to see Jesus for who He really is, to see their own sin and need for a Savior, and gives them the ability to believe and repent. But the work of salvation was already completed before the person was aware [6a].

Her ideas include:

She didn’t want to debate Arminianism.

She is so misinformed about Arminianism that she does not know what a Reformed Arminian is.

To her, Arminianism is synergism and includes Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian Arminianism.

Salvation needs an explanation of regeneration, election and predestination.

She stated that she didn’t come to the forum for a debate. However, when she makes a statement such as, ‘Arminians are syncretists [she has since corrected this to mean synergists] meaning they believe salvation is both a work of God and man’ (as stated in #2) she is asking for a debate whether she says so or not. Why? Because to say that Arminians believe that ‘salvation is both a work of God and man’ is not what I as a Reformed Arminian and other Arminians believe (as in the Society of Evangelical Arminians).

She stated that ‘I have never heard of a “Reformed Arminian” I must admit that sounds like an oxymoron….’ Jacobus Arminius was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church to his dying day, so he was Reformed theologically and regarded his view as Reformed. A Reformed Arminian is one who accepts the soteriology (doctrine of salvation) and other doctrines as expounded by Arminius. Therefore, to use Reformed as only referring to Calvinism is not true. Reformed Arminianism is sometimes called Classical Arminianism. See Roger E Olson’s article, ‘Another Calvinist Misrepresentation of Arminianism‘.

She stated that ‘I’ve met Arminians who hold to both [Pelagian and semi-Pelagian] but never one that holds to a mongergistic view of salvation’. To the contrary, ‘Arminianism is God-centered Theology‘.

Could it be that she is unable to see God-centred theology in Arminianism’s synergism because she doesn’t seem to have read extensively in The Works of James Arminius? If she did, she would find that Arminius believed salvation was the work of God.

What must I do to be saved? When the Philippian jailer asked Paul this question, Paul told him what to DO: ”(You) believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household’ (Acts 16:31) and then Paul spoke the word of the Lord to him and those with him. This was followed by the jailer and his household being baptised (Acts 16:33). We have no direct indication of what Paul said when he spoke the word of the Lord to them, but he ‘rejoiced along with the entire household that he had believed in God’ (Acts 16:34). There is no mention in this text of Paul’s preaching regeneration, election and predestination in order for the jailer to be converted to Christ.